Page 5 of Pregnant By the Italian Mafia Enemy

Neither of them warned me that their values would contradict one another. Now I had to handle shit like this where either option had the potential to fuck me.

If I let her go, she could go to the cops and put my friends and family in jeopardy. If I killed her, I’d be taking an innocent woman’s life.

Fuck morals.

“This fucking girl messed with the interrogation, and you’re going to let her walk?” Marquis asked, shaking his head and popping his knuckles. “I can think of a few things we should do to teach her a lesson.”

I stared at the contents of her purse scattered before me. Her ID, passport, a few personal possessions, and an assortment of hygiene products all fell out when I tipped it on the desk. Even a public library card sat in the pile of shit.

These were all the things I’d expect to find in a woman’s purse. No weapons, aside from a small canister of pepper spray. No drugs. Just basic shit.

“One of Valentino’s cronies?” I asked, voicing my immediate thoughts aloud.

“Her?” he said with a chuckle. “If he wanted to send a spy, I think he’d pick someone a little…bigger.”

I thought back to the slim frame of the woman who stood in one of the first-floor guest bedrooms. I towered over her by half a foot, and she hadn’t stood a chance against me earlier. Hell, my hand had wrapped halfway around her delicate throat, and she could hardly stop trembling. If Valentino wanted to send someone to kill me, he’d have chosen someone my size—someone capable.

But I couldn’t factor anything out. Not this easily, and not when the threat from Valentino had become unstable in recent weeks.

“He’s been amping up his attacks. He took out six of our guys at a trade the other day. I wouldn’t put it past him to send someone,” I retorted, looking over the belongings again. “Since he took outthe Gambinos a year ago, he’s been trying to make a grab for my assets. He self-declared himself the don of New York City.”

I whipped my head around and glanced out the window, half-expecting to find him and his lackeys striding down my street. My chest burned with the thought of him getting away with this bullshit for so long. There were a handful of Italian mob bosses who ran through the city, parading as “powerful” and “lethal.” Only three of us mattered. The Gambinos had significant affiliates and a motorcycle gang association with other branches of the mob in Chicago. They hadplentyof assets, yet Valentino had managed to slip someone into their ranks and take them down.

It should have been enough of a threat that he’d taken him out, but I’d let it slide.

Now, only two of us were left, leaving me as his last remaining target.

“I should have shut him down the second he started spreading that propaganda,” I growled, shaking my head. “Thesecondhe took out the Gambinos, I knew he was a danger to us.”

But I hadn’t. I’d been too focused on growing my businesses and coordinating with my brother in Sicily. We’d been converging our assets, and this year proved to be the busiest year yet. To account for a lot of the illegal assets, I’d opened two new branches of our casinos. I’d expanded my extortions to dozens of more successful businesses.

I’d been back and forth from Italy thirteen times.

I didn’t have time to deal with this bullshit. Not from someone like Valentino, who could have been crushed beneath the boot of one of my soldiers two years ago.

Marquis snorted. “He’s arrogant, but he’s not stupid. He wouldn’t sendher.”

"I didn’t get here by letting my enemies walk idly by,” I told him. Marquis was trusted—a valued part of my inner circle, even—but he was wrong. “There’s a reason he’s been attacking, and I can’t let that stand much longer.”

“I don’t think the girl you have upstairs would be capable of doing anything, even if it was another one of his power plays,” Marquis said, running his tongue over his yellowed teeth. His dreads hung loosely over his forehead, and he flicked them from his face swiftly. “I can go and make sure if you’re really concerned. I can shake her up a bit and see what she says.”

I shook my head. “Nobody touches her.”

Not until I knew more about her. I couldn’t torture a girl based on my ungrounded suspicions.

“She spit in your face, boss. You’re going to let that slide?”

If she were anyone else, I would have killed her on the spot. And if I found that she wasn’t innocent, I still might.

If she had any connection to fucking Valentino, I’d send her head to him on a platter.

But if she were truly innocent…I wouldn’t touch her. I could scare her but nothing more. We did things differently than my father before me, and that was a line I wouldn’t cross.

“She thought we were going to kill her,” I said, exhaling deeply. “I’m surprised she didn’t try to do worse.”

Marquis nodded. “What do we do with her then? Let her go?”

That was a question I didn’t know how to answer. She saw too much, and I couldn’t let her go to the cops. Even if it were a case of “wrong place, wrong time”, she was a risk.

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